Hunter and the Prey
by 1lovechildren
Summary: Set almost a year after Eclipse, Bella now a Vampire suddenly realises what she's left behind. AU
1. Chapter 1

"_Do you ever shut up?" The words aren't as reprimanding as she'd hoped for. It was impossible enough to get annoyed with the dark-skinned boy when they weren't on the beach, watching the waves lapping at the sand. There was a soft laugh from the boy beside her._

"_Rarely, does it bother you?"_

"_It worries me slightly that you're this old and no one's yet introduced you to the concept of silence," she replied, managing to sound a little sarcastic._

"_Silence is boring," he replied casually. "There's nothing to listen to."_

"_The sea," she offered. "The waves and the wind and the birds."_

"_But that's not silence, is it." The boy turned to regard her with his large, dark, laughing eyes. "That's a rushing noise, a blowing noise and a lot of squawking."_

"_Jacob!" she hit his arm again then jerked away, shaking her hand and grimacing. "Did you even feel that?"_

_Jake laughed. "Nope."_

"_Silence, Jake, in this particular context is you _Not Talking!_" But she was laughing and he was laughing and she leapt at him and he fell back and they were rolling in the sand and laughing as the sun shone above them._

_Everything ends._

I opened my eyes slowly. Not that I'd been sleeping, I didn't sleep anymore… couldn't. I couldn't blush, didn't need to breath. I wasn't alive.

"What are you thinking?" asked Edward beside me. My own personal miracle… only, maybe not. Maybe I'd left the miracle behind.

I'd spent so long trying to make him shut up for a few seconds. Now the silence was unbearable. Edward's arm slides around my shoulders igniting a small memory of his cold skin against mine. He didn't feel cold anymore, the frozen wastes of Alaska weren't cold to my paler, almost white, skin. I didn't feel anything when he touched me, not the thrill of the cold, the slight tremor of dealing with death.

I always thought I'd love him anyway but when it came down to it and he took my humanity I think my love was lost in the transition. When it comes down to it, some things are about blood.

And I don't have that anymore.

I rest my head against his neck, in the place between his throat and his shoulder and remember what Jacob said once. Maybe he could stand the smell, maybe he'd take me anyway. Thinking about him is the only way I can feel anymore. His warm skin would almost burn me and his smell would revolt me but I can't help thinking that I wouldn't care. I lean against Edward, one marble statue against another, and feel nothing.

"_Wait up, Jake!" The girl ran forwards after the wolf which turned to regard her, it's head tilted to one side. "I don't see what we're going into the woods for anyway." The wolf made a movement which could've been a shrug and sinks to it's knees. The girl paused for half a moment before running forwards and climbing onto it's back. Her fingers closed around the red fur in front of her and the wolf set off again._

_When then stopped she climbed off and the wolf nudged her up a hill before turning and running into the trees. "Jake!" she called uncertainly, her voice shaking. "Jake!"_

_Slowly, she turned and began to walk up the hill, looking over her shoulder until she tripped over a tree root and was caught by a pair of strong arms. She looked up into the laughing face. "You should look where you're going," Jacob remarked casually. "I hear there are wolves in these hills." She laughed and pushed him but he just lifted her casually._

"_Jake, I can walk! Put me down!"_

"_You're ruining the moment." He took a few more steps then put her down. "There, I promised you a sight to remember." He took a step back, letting her walk forwards on her own._

_It felt like the whole world was spread out beneath her. The forest ended and she could see the whole of la Push, she could see Forks, she could see Edward's manor house and the roads. She could see the school and the forests._

"_Wow."_

"_Better than anything your vampire's shown you, hey?"_

_She remembered Edward glittering in a clearing. It didn't compare, it couldn't compare._

"_Wow," she breathed again as Jake came up behind her and slid an arm around her shoulders. "How did you find this?"_

"_I like running and I was remembering what you said about silence, your kind of silence. I need to apologize, I was talking about a Vampire's silence. An absence of life, of everything."_

_She was too amazed by the view to get angry and just kept listening as he continued. "This is a werewolf silence. I found it and it's my gift to you." His voice faded as he finished speaking and she found herself listening._

_The wind whistled softly through the cliff face, a bird somewhere in the distance sang and the trees whispered behind her._

"This is a vampire silence," I breathed, looking out of the window at the ice and the clouds. Edward and Emmett are hunting, Rosalie's in her room, Jasper and Alice left for a town a while back. The house is silent, the ice is silent. Silent and lifeless like every person in this house. Like Edward. Like me.

I want the trees, I want the trees and the wind and the sea and people. I haven't been near any since we came here, since being bitten, I don't understand what this 'bloodlust' I should be feeling is. I don't understand because I'm being protected.

I'm as strong as he is but he still feels the need to protect me. Jake never did that, even when I was human and weak he didn't protect me. He told me everything and then stood beside me. He did what he wanted rather than pandering to my every whim.

"Bella?" Carlisle steps quietly into the room. Wouldn't do to break the silence, of course. "Bella, are you alright? Did you want something to drink? There's some bear left over, no one really likes it except you." He smiled apologetically, trying to be nice to me.

I only liked bear because, of all the animals we ate, it reminded me least of a wolf. I followed him out to the kitchen anyway and let him pour me a mug of the rich red liquid and warm it up so it would taste fresh. I hadn't eaten anything fresh for a long time.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. I shrugged and looked away, I wasn't. But it was nothing he could fix.

"_So there's a vampire silence and a werewolf silence," she said casually, leaning against Jake's back in the old living room. "Is it just a coincidence that werewolf silence seems to be the best? After all, I _am_ talking to a werewolf."_

"_Depends on what you want," Jake replied. "You're a life kind of person, you like the soft background noises that make up life. Some people are solitary and prefer the kind of silence where you can't hear anything."_

"_Which would, according to you, make me a werewolf person."_

"_I've been saying it for years." He grinned at me, his teeth bright. "Are you really going to give it up?" he asked suddenly. "Retreat into the vampire silence, die but never move on?"_

"_For Edward," she replied as though nothing else mattered. She was so single minded she didn't even think about the possibilities. "I would do anything."_

"_What about become someone else? At some point you're going to realize that you've just turned yourself into a different person and you won't care anymore."_

"_Never." There was a pause then Jake shrugged and turned away._

"_Vampire silence, you won't like it."_

"You were always right, weren't you, you always had to be right." I looked down the cliff at the waves breaking beneath me. The sound of them washed over my parched ears like a desert wonderer being confronted with an oasis. It had been so hard to get here, I'd had to convince everyone to take a holiday and I didn't know what I was doing here. I hadn't decided.

The moment I decided on anything Alice would see so I would live in indecision. I'd perfected it in the past and we'd laughed about it. She couldn't see me now. None of them could and none of them would.

I would never find him, I couldn't return to La Push for fear of the bloodlust and I'd called anyway, my dad not anyone else. After a lot of hysterical talking I eventually managed to extract the truth. Jake had left, not long after I got engaged. He still hadn't come back.

So here I was. I'd considered ending my life but then I would never find him, never know if there was the smallest chance he'd take me back. On top of that I'd have to go to Italy, provoke the Volturi. Alice would find me before then.

So here, the cliff top, indecisive to the end. The sea would be a new kind of silence. Not Vampire, not werewolf but a combination of the two. Where I should've stayed. Where I would've stayed if I'd listened to Edward, listened to Jake, known myself better.

I stepped forwards, didn't even bother to dive. Part of me hoped that he would be coming, like he had when I tried cliff jumping for the first time. A large part of me hoped he would save me as I sank.

I didn't try to swim, I didn't try to do anything as I dropped to the ocean floor. My breathing was regular, instinctive. I could feel the water going down my throat but I didn't choke, I didn't spit, the salt didn't sting my open eyes.

Vampires don't float. We can swim but if we don't then we just drop and keep dropping. I'm tired of living but I'll continue. I don't know how long I can go without blood, whether or not I'll die without it.

My last thoughts won't be of Edward, they won't be of his cold good looks or the ice he gave me. They won't be of Vampire silence.

_Jacob!_

Everything seems silent underwater but not cold silent, beautiful silent.

_Jacob!_

This is me, this is who I am.

_Jacob!_

_I love you!_

The russet wolf sank lower in the undergrowth, regarding the deer thoughtfully. Around it, it could feel the rest of the pack moving into place. Muzzles flared and eyes flashed.

Suddenly there was something in the back of the wolf's mind. Like a call, a strange noise that buzzed and distracted him making him flinch.

A sharp nip on his hindquarters from the alpha wolf. The russet may be big but he wasn't skilled and he knew where he stood.

_Focus,_ came the short, sharp command.

The wolf shook itself, banishing all other thoughts but the hunter and the prey.


	2. Chapter 2

_'Tell Me How I'm supposed to breathe with no air.  
>Can't live can't breathe with no air.<br>That's how I feel whenever you ain't there.  
>There's No Air No Air.' <em>  
>The music was turned down all of a sudden and I looked up, my silver eyes meeting Carlisle's dark ones. They were filled with pity, one of the many things I didn't want right now. He sat beside me on the soft couch and slid an arm around my shoulders.<br>"You don't want me to tell Edward." It wasn't a question. He'd apparently had to work very hard to ensure Edward didn't find out in the first place. As it was, my husband still wasn't home from his extended hunt.  
>I leant my head against his shoulder, trying to get away from wishing I'd made the other choice, wishing I'd followed the other path.<br>"How did you find me?" I asked instead, my voice cracked and hoarse from the amount of salt still in my system. "I thought… Alice couldn't see me."  
>"No one could see you like that, Bella." He smiled slightly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I followed you. You seemed upset so when you left the house I followed you."<br>"Oh." I turned my head away again.  
>"Are you going to tell me why or are you going to wait for me to leave the room so you can go out and try to get yourself lost again?"<br>"I was thinking of the volturi this time," I replied simply. "It's hard to find danger when you're like this." I spread my pale arms. I should've lied, should've made something up so he'd leave me but Carlisle knew me better than that.  
>"Why do you need danger?"<br>I paused, staring at the white arms with the red score lines down the centre, something else I'd never told Edward. It hadn't worked anyway, suicide, it was all pointless. "Remember when Edward left?" I asked instead. "I became like a zombie, living to continue living."  
>"Like you are now?"<br>I let out a soft, humourless laugh. "Exactly like. He was there… Jacob," even saying his name brought a fresh stab of pain to my heart. "He was there and we did things, we rode bikes and we defied everything and in the moments of complete danger when I was about to be injured badly I heard Edward in my head. I heard the voice of the one I loved inside my head." I stared at my hands.  
>"You want to hear someone else." I looked around and saw despair and the tiniest hint of anger in his eyes. "My son… his love isn't enough for you anymore? His happiness doesn't make you happy?"<br>_"Tell Me How I'm supposed to breathe with no air,"_ I replied, in a soft sing-song voice. _"Can't live can't breathe with no air."_ I moved my hands to sit on them, so I wouldn't have to see the lines anymore. The lines of failed attempts, wounds that a vampire could shrug off because we could shrug off everything. "I don't need to breathe. I'm not alive so I don't need to breathe and I don't need to feel. I don't feel _anything. Anything,_ Carlisle. The only time I feel anything is when I think of him and my heart of ice shatters again."  
>"It's probably to do with turning. It'll pass, you always said you'd love him forever."<br>"Maybe I was talking about the wrong person." I remembered who I was talking to moments after Carlisle stood up and hit me hard around the face. Carlisle, Edwards loving father who wanted to see Edward happy. Wanted to see me and Edward together, one wonderful loving family.  
>"Maybe you should've thought about that before leading him on," he replied coldly. "Try harder, Bella. You promised him eternity." He turned and stormed out the room. I stared down at the thin gold band on my finger. Eternity.<br>It had been easy to promise at the time.  
>The ring slid easily off my finger, I never thought I'd be any good at letting go but here I was. I could do it, I could search every forest in the world until I found him and I would do it.<br>I would do it because in the instant I saw the feral anger in Carlisle's eyes, saw him raise his arm to strike, the only thing I could think of doing was letting out a howl. I cried his name in my head and then, as I fell back from Carlisle's fist, I heard it. Faint like a whisper of smoke against my skin.  
><em>Bella…<em>  
>I raised the ring and scratched at it with one fingernail before letting it drop to the ground and walking away.<p>

The young man stared around at the pack for several moments, eyes wild as he hunted for whatever had done this to him. The voice.  
>Bella! He shouted again as memories flooded back. Bella!<br>He had felt her. He had felt her pain and her joy at hearing him, he had heard her call his name and now he was himself again. "Jacob," he said softly, staring at his hands, his skin. "My name is Jacob."  
>She was a vampire, he was a werewolf. He let out a laugh as the wolf pack he had been part of scattered behind him. It didn't matter.<br>He would find her.

Edward returned from the trip, tired as a vampire gets, dirty and wishing for two things. Second on the list was a hot shower, first on the list...  
>He smiled as he remembered Bella's smile as she kissed him goodbye, remembered the feel of her skin on his. They could leave everything until tomorrow. The bear he was carrying could be frozen and the blood sorted tomorrow. Or the day after. He wasn't going to let her go again for a long while.<br>He knew something was wrong the moment he pushed open the door of the house. There were bags and boxes everywhere, everything important was packed. He dropped the bear in surprise and ran up to Esme. "What's happening? We can't move, what about Bella? She can't be around people, you know that."  
>Then Carlisle tapped him on the shoulder. Edward turned and felt something drop into his hand. Something round and metallic. He looked down slowly, knowing that if his heart had been beating it would've stopped in that moment.<br>"She left it." Carlisle turned away leaving Edward to stare at the wedding ring that lay in his palm.  
>Carved into the inside were too words. Two words from the song he had only just realised was playing.<br>_Can't breathe._  
>His fingers traced the outside and slowly, he raised it to his eye level. One more word, one words that made him cry out with rage and pain.<br>"No!" The band dropped from his hand and he fell to his knees.  
>Jasper knelt down beside him slowly and lifted the ring from the floor. Slowly, he picked it up and read the inscription. Then he reached out and rested a hand on Edward's shoulder.<br>"I'm sorry."  
><em>Goodbye…<em>


End file.
